Historical Jesus

angelo wrote:There's also that moment because of political expediency by Constantine when he decreed that henceforth christianity would be the new religion of the Empire along side the pagan ones. Christianity had the better salesmen who had a better more believable product to sell which gave the masses some hope. That product was a perceived resurrection of the dead.

Certainly Constantine had an important role to play in Christian history. But history also showed us that Christianity spread also in times of persecution. The early martyrs (including, probably, the apostles) also played an important role - living witnesses that the Christian faith was worth dying for.

The thing is Angelo, you can point to Paul or to Constantine, or whoever played a role in spreading the faith. But it doesn't really show anything other than the fact that people were involved in the faith being spread. It may seem a bit harsh, but my gut response is "so what?". It doesn't seem to prove or disprove anything about the claims of Christianity - it just describes how the faith spread. No one would deny that Paul and Constantine were important people in spreading the faith, but, 'so what?'